


Philochronosophy

by Paian



Series: Encrypted Phones [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Dialogue-Only, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e20 Unending, Established Relationship, M/M, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-30
Updated: 2007-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paian/pseuds/Paian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 'Unending' ends, Jack and Daniel talk on the phone about what may or may not have happened during those fifty years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Philochronosophy

"So, fifty years."

"Yup."

"And Teal'c won't give it up. What happened. Who got together with ... whom."

"Nope."

"But you have some thoughts on the matter."

"Oh, and you don't."

"Office pool?"

"No point. No payout. Teal'c'll never give it up."

"You did Jared instead of Leda. On Tegalus. That tells us something."

"You know that place I go in my head when you push into topics I can't deal with? That thing I do instead of sticking my fingers in my ears and going 'la la la' the way you do?"

"La la la, la la la ... "

"I'm trying to assemble Latinate root components to make a sniglet for 'sexual forensic sciences of futures that never happened.'"

"This one did happen. Then it got un-happened."

"Jack, we are _not doing this again_. Not after the Egyptian ZPM thing."

"I didn't do Maybourne even when there was no Leda."

"You want a prize for that?"

"I didn't do _anyone_ in the time loop. And Teal'c _will_ vouch for that."

"You kissed Sam."

"Well, yeah. OK. Crappy thing to do, too. Man, I'm such a dick sometimes. But you know she kissed me too! When she was stranded on _Prometheus_! Even if it was only in her head."

"I know. She told me she told you."

"She did? She didn't tell me she told you she told me."

"You didn't let me tell you she told me. It's when I told her about us and she and I talked about her-and-you, and We Do Not Speak Of That."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, that's still a good rule."

"I'd probably have kissed Vala."

" ... In the time loop? Or ... ?"

"In a time loop. Thus the conditional tense."

"But you mean in the future too. You mean 'I probably kissed Vala.'"

"God, you sound _triumphant_. What is _with_ you? You _want_ me to have been unfaithful to you in this future that happened and then got un-happened? Is this that voyeurism thing where you get off on the fantasy of me with other people? Wait, wait -- other _women_. That's the fantasy, right? That hasn't come up in so long I forgot. You want some kind of assurance that it's one of the women I did and not one of the men."

"Well, you all probably did each other at some point. C'mon, that's a no-brainer. Basic assumption."

"But I said 'kissed.' I didn't say 'fucked.' Because you brought up the time loop. You were setting me up for something. You ... "

...

...

"Now who's doing forensics."

"Conversational subtext forensics. Figuring-out-what-the-fuck-Jack-is-actually-getting-at forensics. You know I used to have friendly sex with Sam sometimes and you've never had a problem with that. We've always had an open arrangement with regard to one-night-stands, although granted we've never tested it for real, assuming we've both told the truth this whole time, which I do. You know I think Mitchell's hot and I have a profound aesthetic appreciation for Teal'c and I don't want to have sex with either of them, ever, for real, and if I did I'd feel sick and disappointed with myself and ... miss you, even more ... miss you so much I couldn't ... Jesus, Jack."

"I wasn't there."

"Yeah. Yeah. I know."

"I checked the logs, figured it out. I was asleep. It was 4:23 in the morning my time. I hit the sack about quarter to four that night, probably dropped right into REM sleep. It all happened between one flick of the eyes and another. You lived a whole lifetime during one frame of some dream I can't even remember."

"And then I didn't."

"But you did."

"I told you we're not -- "

"You did, Daniel, or Teal'c wouldn't remember it. You know what I'm asking. You know what I need to know."

...

...

...

"Daniel."

"You need to know that I was happy."

"Bingo."

"Well, I don't _know_, Jack. Were you happy with Laira?"

"Yes. You know I was. As happy as I could be with my heart ripped out and my life buried in a hole in the ground and no you."

"Then that's probably the level of happiness I found. I can't _stand_ thinking about this, Jack. Can't we make it back into a joke? Fifty-to-one that Mitchell blew Landry and if I win I'll toss in the brain-scrubbing bleach?"

"Teal'c blew Landry. It's a Jaffa thing."

"La la la. La la la."

"Philochronosophy."

"Wow. Greek, but, wow. Good start."

"I'm making my smug face."

"Yeah, I can hear that."

"Shut up."

"I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing because you're fucking adorable and I love you. When's my flight?"

"What flight?"

"The flight you're going to surprise me with when you override Walter's painstaking scheduling and free me up for the weekend to come out there."

"_My_ flight lands at Peterson in thirty minutes, so that would be a pretty, I don't know, O. Henry kinda surprise, don't you think?"

"Oh god."

"Oh yeah. I love that sound. You know you make exactly the same sound when you find out I might actually _be_ there when you need me as you do when -- "

"Lalala! You've been having this entire conversation on a _military aircraft_! Shut _up_!"

"It's just me and the pilot, baby, and he's busy up in the cockpit right now."

"We are not having mile-high phone sex."

"Nope, savin' the goods for when I get there. But you know I can't free you up, Daniel. Not anymore, the way I did last year. Not with all this Ori shit going down."

"I know. I do actually know that. And you know I don't need you to be here the way I did after the ... the Adria, Merlin ... the Prior thing. It's not like that. I'm fine. I don't ... I mean, fine, it happened, OK, whatever, but it didn't happen to _me_, and the whole hyperspace chase thing wasn't that big a deal. It's -- "

"Teal'c."

" -- Teal'c I'm ... worried ... Yeah."

"It's a lot to carry. Whole extra life he lived, nobody else can ever know about it, fifty years he shared with you guys that none of you will ever remember. I know a little about that. From the time loop, yeah, but, you know. In general."

"He know you're coming?"

"No. But he probably figures."

"Should I invite him over here, or you have some other plan?"

"There would be good."

"Can I leave time for us to ... "

"You damn well better leave time for sex first. See if he can come by about nine."

"Shoot, I told Sam I'd swing by her place around nine-thirty."

"Thanks, Daniel."

"Sure. You on final approach yet?"

"Close. Couple of minutes."

"Jack, it took me a long time to be OK with being close to somebody again. If I lost this it would be like Sha're all over again and I can't stand either the thought of going through that again or the thought of settling or even moving on to someone else. But I understand now that you need to know that I would. That I'd find some kind of peace, some way to be ... a little happy, a little less alone. You know my opinion on one-true-love, you know I don't believe there's only one possible person for everyone, you know it's about choice and circumstances. _I choose you_, and whatever I'd do if that option were taken away, what matters is that this is what I want. _This_ is what makes me happy, and if I believed in God I would thank God for it every second of every fucking day. But what I believe in is you, and us, and because it matters to you, because for reasons I will never really understand you love me so much that it scares you shitless to think I spent fifty years alone among close friends I couldn't find it in me to love that way, then yes. I think the ... love, I've developed for Vala over this past year could grow into something more. If she would ever _fucking_ stop trying to get into my pants, if the, the, the love I know she feels for me too turned out to be something with that potential, yes, I think it's possible. I think that of all the possibilities, it's the most probable. Can you see the runway yet?"

"I sure can, Daniel."

"Will you never _ever_ make me say the words 'love' and 'Vala' in the same sentence again?"

"Never ever."

"OK. Good. OK."

"Final approach, babe. Gotta go."

"See you in twenty."

"You bet."


End file.
